Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution: Hot Lips By Urban Decay

Eyes? No question. Urban Decay all the way. They make some of the creamiest, dreamiest pressed powder shadows available today in a pretty wide selection of vibrant colors and nummy nudes. I mean, only UD could make beige sexy!

But lips? I still in a little bit of shock that they got rid of their core lipstick line from back in the day. I’m still hoping they will do some retro, revival thing and I’ll be able to walk into a Sephora and pick up Burnout, one of my all-time favorite lipstick colors ever, bar none. I’ve never found anything like that color since and I’m still just a little bit salty about that.

So what does this all mean? It means that I’ve been hesitant to try out their lip products. For the longest time they didn’t really have much to offer anyway, focusing on their strengths, eyes and amazing face products (including eyeshadow primers that are on my Must Have list!). I mentioned in an earlier post about the brand that I was interested to see what they were doing with their launch of Revolution Lipstick; I got a small sample of one of the new lipsticks in Catfight in a Sephora swag bag a while back, as well as mini sample of their Naked lip gloss in Lovechild, but they got tossed in the kit and I never really played with them.

Fast forward to nowish. Recently, I went on a little beauty vacation when it became clear to me that I’d gone a little overboard in the beauty department. I didn’t buy a single cosmetic item for the entire month of April (though I was sorely tempted – look for an upcoming post about TooFaced Cosmetics’ divine Melted Metal lipsticks!) and actually managed to stay out of Sephora until nearly June. Turns out, when you actually stay away for a couple of months, a whole bunch of new stuff comes out! There was actually quite a bit of new cosmetic eye candy, but I was especially drawn to the new Urban Decay Revolution lip glosses. I had to get one, so I figured why not bust out those other two UD lip product samples and do a post – see if Urban Decay can really win me over with their stuff for my kisser!

I’m actually a little bummed I didn’t try this lipstick sooner. When I saw it in the sample package, I think I was crabby that I didn’t get a different choice in the color (I was going through a classic red lip phase at the time!) and so I was put off by Catfight’s aggressive fuchsia. But don’t worry, it’s not that 80s fuchsia that is routinely seen on older white women in bingo parlors. This is the sort of pink that is right on that line where if it gets any darker it will officially transition over to the red family. The lipstick didn’t have any scent that I could discern, but to be fair this is a sample that I’ve had knocking around in my kit for close to a year so it may have been there and faded. I loved the application – super color saturated! I got full coverage from just one go-round. No layering needed here. I thought it was almost just a touch too dark, but then I blotted my lips and it was perfect. Blue-pink heaven! No Barbie pink here – this lipstick is for the girl who kicked Barbie’s ass and then fucked her man. Hmmm, maybe that’s why they call it Catfight…

Ugh, I want to like this product so much! I’ve been thinking a lot of playing with looks that are less Technicolor and a little more subtle…well, subtle for a drag queen! This gloss is a beautiful pale pink. It goes on nicely and isn’t too sticky, but the coverage is a little uneven. I put one coat on, and it was too pale; my lips had some shine, but I didn’t really get much of the color. When I put the second coat on, I got some of the color, but it wasn’t even and seemed to congregate at the outer edges of my lips. If you are just looking for some glossy shine, maybe a little hint of color, these are probably OK, though there are a lot of good products out there that will give you that. It could also work well with a lipstick of the same color that you just want to punch up with some shine. But on the whole, I found it to be just a little bit too naked..

This is the product that inspired the post and, no surprise, it was my favorite of the bunch. Part of it was that I bought this one, so I got to pick the exact color I wanted, but I also think that everything I didn’t like about the Naked gloss was just better in this gloss. Well, except the smell. It wasn’t bad, there just wasn’t anything there and so it just had a light makeup-y smell. Am I wanting tooo much? Is putting a delicious scent into a lip gloss not a thing anymore?! But the application was smooth and had gorgeous color and shine. The texture is thick; MAC used to call that texture “honied” (which is usually just code for goopy) but it’s not too sticky so that saves it. The color is gorgeous, another one of those pinks straddling the line into red territory. In fact, I tried putting Assassin over Catfight and it was divine! I’ll definitely be rocking that at a show or photo shoot sometime.

Moral of the story? It’s time for a Revolution, and Urban Decay is doing a good job of stirring things up! I’m not sure that they’ve entirely succeeded, and I still can’t find a company that can truly rival MAC in the lipstick market (especially in terms of sheer color selection – when I was shopping them regularly they always had at least 30 lipstick shades in their core collection, not including special/limited editions colors!), but I’m glad to see that Urban Decay is spending a little bit of time sexing up the lips. After all, nothing pairs better with a gorgeous Naked eye like a big puckered pair of DSLs.